[Prefatory Note: The following interview was previously published in September by the online Global Governance Forum. My responses to the questions posed by Aslı Bâli have been somewhat updated to take account of intervening developments. Aslı was my last PhD student at Princeton, has emerged as a star of the UCLA School of Law in recent years, and just now has joined the faculty of Yale Law School. Although her brilliance as a Princeton student both stimulated and challenged me, it as a cherished friend that Aslı has most impacted my life.]
Ukraine: War, Statecraft, and Geopolitical Conflict — a focus on the return of the nuclear question
Introduction: The risk of nuclear escalation in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a subject of considerable debate in the United States among scholars, policy analysts and media commentators. These debates reveal a broad spectrum of views from those who dismiss Russian references to nuclear capabilities as mere saber rattling to those who worry that if Russian President Vladimir Putin finds his back to the wall in Ukraine, he may resort to tactical nuclear strikes. Whatever the assessment of the risks in Ukraine, it is clear that questions of nuclear deterrence are back on the table after nearly a generation in which most American analysts viewed non-proliferation as the sole U.S. foreign policy objective regarding nuclear arsenals.
For those who have continued to press concerns about nuclear disarmament since the end of the Cold War, the return of the nuclear question may raise awareness among new audiences about the existential threat posed by existing nuclear arsenals. Richard Falk has for decades been an outspoken authority calling for denuclearization. In this interview, Aslı Bâli invites Richard to reflect on whether the Ukraine conflict risks becoming a military confrontation that tips the world into further nuclear escalation or whether there remains an opportunity to move the world away from the nuclear precipice.
Richard Falk is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice Emeritus at Princeton University and Chair of Global Law at Queen Mary University London, Faculty of Law. He is the author or co-author of over twenty books, and editor or co-editor of numerous others. A collection of his selected writings on nuclear disarmament was published in an edited volume from Cambridge University Press titled On Nuclear Weapons: Denuclearization, Demilitarization and Disarmament (2019). Aslı Bâli is Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law and Founding Faculty Director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights. She interviewed Falk in May 2022.
Aslı Bâli: To begin our conversation, it would be useful to provide some context as to why nuclear disarmament was largely sidelined as an urgent international question in the post-Cold War period. How might we think about the last two decades in particular, during which the possibility of the development of an Iranian nuclear arsenal was deemed so much more threatening than the existence of extensive nuclear arsenals in the hands of other states?
Richard Falk: I think the last two decades since the Soviet collapse reflect a period in which the nuclear weapons states, particularly the US, have felt comfortable with the nuclear status quo. Their preference was to organize this arrangement—in which they maintain nuclear arsenals and other states forego that option—as a permanent regime anchored in the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) interpreted in such a way as to drop the disarmament requirements of that treaty. Article VI of the NPT contains the good faith nuclear disarmament obligation, which was supposedly the bargain offered to induce non-nuclear states to become parties to the treaty. The attempt by nuclear weapons states to drop this element from the treaty arrangement creates an interesting international law situation: There’s a breach of an essential provision of the NPT, yet this treaty regime is regarded by the US and NATO countries as a great achievement of international law in relation to nuclear threat reduction. The existential scope of the NPT is reduced to a hegemonic arrangement that imposes limits on the proliferation of nuclear weapons, while keeping the development and control of the weapons restricted to a small group of nuclear weapons states. This includes the discretion to develop and threaten their use, as well as determining how and whether they would be used, and to what extent, in crisis or combat situations. This is a regulatory framework that neither reflects the NPT as a negotiated text, nor is prudent and equitable, and it certainly violates the major premise of the rule of law—treating equals equally.
I participated in a Council on Foreign Relations webinar event a year or so ago about the future of national security, and one of the participants introduced the idea that Article VI of the NPT is best understood as ‘a useful fiction.’ That is, Article VI was included in the treaty as a way of satisfying non-nuclear countries that they were being offered an equitable bargaining framework by becoming parties to the NPT. Whereas in fact there was a tacit understanding from the beginning that disarmament, despite the treaty language of commitment, was not viewed by political elites of the nuclear weapons states as a realistic, or even a desirable goal, to be pursued by the nuclear weapons states, and most especially it was so viewed by the United States.
In considering the broader context that has, as you put it, sidelined the issues of nuclear disarmament, the other thing to be emphasized is that there had crept in a kind of complacency about this weaponry. There are thousands of nuclear weapons, preponderately in the US and Russia, and very little public understanding of existing constraints on their threat or use or under what circumstances these arsenals might be introduced into diplomacy or even combat situations. The U.S. in particular, and some other countries like Israel, have been developing combat roles for certain types nuclear weapons—styled as tactical nuclear arms or so-called “mini-nukes”—that strongly implied that such weapons might actually be introduced into local or regional conflicts. Given the array of bilateral conflicts that have the risk of nuclear escalation including in Ukraine, if confrontation escalates in relation to Taiwan, on the Korean peninsula, in India/Pakistan, perhaps if Israel’s security is under pressure in the Middle East. Despite these possibilities being widely feared, there has been so far no concerted or consistent international response exhibiting opposition or even anxiety.
The risks of the overall situation are well-reflected for those who follow the nuclear issue by the fact that the Doomsday clock—maintained by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and often relied upon as a reliable assessment of nuclear danger at a given time—has moved ever closer in this period to midnight. Prior to the Ukraine crisis I think it was already only one hundred seconds away from midnight. In the words of the editors, “the Clock remains the closest it has ever been to civilization-ending apocalypse.” The UN Secretary General has recently warned that the world is but ‘one miscalculation’ away from nuclear catastrophe.
There is another worrisome aspect of the manner in which the three NATO nuclear weapons states have assumed the authority to enforce the NPT regime as it applies to non-nuclear states. There is nothing about enforcement in the treaty, and Article X grants non-nuclear states a right of withdrawal if facing severe security threats. And yet the U.S. and Israel have made unlawful claims to use force if they believe Iran intends or achieves a nuclear weapons capability. This is hegemonic geopolitics, which not be confused with the implementation of international law.
The complacency toward this weaponry and the satisfaction with the NPT regime that has allowed powerful states to retain a hierarchical and hegemonic relationship to non-nuclear states are important dimensions of this doomsday risk. Thus, the situation prior to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Iran require urgent action to avoid existential dangers, but global complacency and the diversionary priority given to containing proliferation threats posed by non-nuclear states rather than addressing the risks of existing arsenals has kept the nuclear agenda from any serious engagement with disarmament and war threats for many decades. This must stop or disaster is virtually assured.
Aslı Bâli: Your response raises one further question: why, in your view, have the non-nuclear states acquiesced in the violation of the core bargained-for agreement they had negotiated in the NPT?
Richard Falk: I think the non-nuclear weapons states, too, have adapted to this complacent atmosphere when it comes to nuclear weapons, although this may be changing, and not primarily because of Ukraine. It may reflect a sense of a lack of leverage over global nuclear policy in a post-Cold War context. During the Cold War, there had been some willingness on the part of the Soviet Union and then China to engage in a disarmament process on negotiating arsenal reductions, and this seemed realistic to the rest of the world. But in the post-Cold War period, the U.S. shifted away from even the pretense of disarmament priorities and there has been an absence of powerful states pushing back against this trajectory. That said, I do think there is now emerging a critical outlook on the part of the Global South that may alter course back in manner more supportive of the views of disarmament advocates. This ‘new look’ of the Global South has been most clearly expressed in the negotiation and adoption a new treaty, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), signed in 2017 and coming into force with over sixty ratifications in 2021. The treaty itself was originally supported by as many as 120 countries, though it has only garnered signatures from about two-thirds of that number and been ratified so far by half.
Another indication of renewed Global South resistance to overlooking the nuclear weapons states disarmament obligations is evident in the twice delayed review conference called for by the NPT. Such a review conference is supposed to take place every five years and the pivotal Tenth Review Conference was scheduled for 2020. Originally postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was supposed to be rescheduled for 2021 and was postponed again to 2022 and finally took place in August 2022. But in addition to pandemic-related reasons, it is understood that the deferrals have been prompted by the concern among nuclear weapons states that there may encounter friction with the Global South over disarmament. Although the failure to produce a consensus outcome document was blamed on Russia, there were also present signs of resentment about the continuing refusal of the nuclear weapons states to implement their Article VI obligations.
In short, even prior to Ukraine and Taiwan there was reason to think that there is a new international mood at the intergovernmental level concerning the threat posed by existing nuclear arsenals. I think the Ukraine and Taiwan encounters have now added momentum to this shift by a reawakening at the civil society level of palpable apprehensions over the threat or use of nuclear weapons, and in Ukraine the additional risk that nuclear power facilities will be accidentally, or even deliberately, attacked. I believe this is a time when I am hoping for a revival of pressure from below to put nuclear disarmament back on the global policy agenda, and this time with greatly increased participation of non-Western civil society and governments.
Aslı Bâli: Some have characterized the Ukraine conflict as illustrating the degree to which global powers might stumble blindly into a nuclear confrontation. Is it your sense that there are opportunities to contain this risk today whether through intergovernmental diplomacy or global civil society mobilization?
Richard Falk: Well, I think at the civil society level there is a definite concern though it is not too well-focused at this point. There is sort of a free-floating anxiety about the possibility that nuclear weapons use might occur on the European continent and this may have a galvanizing effect that leads to forms of domestic pressure in some European states to take action to offset such a risk. I also think that some high officials in the Biden inner circle have changed their views of the Ukraine conflict as the potential nuclear dimensions of the conflict have come into clearer focus. At an earlier stage of the Ukraine war, it seemed as if the Biden administration didn’t consider very seriously the nuclear risk, though they were always present fortunately to some degree wider war dangers of escalation. This sensitivity was evident, for example, in Biden’s early resistance to calls, especially from Congress and right-wing think tanks, to establish a no-fly zone in Ukraine, and in his original hesitancy to supply offensive weaponry to the Ukrainians. Similarly, the early posture of not interfering with Ukrainian President Volodomir Zelensky’s efforts at seeking some sort of negotiated compromise further confirmed that the Biden administration was wary of escalation, and willing to allow Ukraine to control its own future. But in a second phase of the conflict, when the Ukrainian resistance turned out to be more successful than anticipated, and strategic defeat or weakening of Russia seemed possible and strategically attractive, the Biden administration’s priorities visibly shifted and they manifestly treated the Ukraine war as an opportunity to teach Russia a lesson and at the same time, and perhaps of greater significance, to signal China that if they tried anything similar with Taiwan, they would face an even worse outcome. This latter point was provocatively underscored by Biden during his recent trip to Asia that featured a strong public statement committing the US to the defense of Taiwan, followed by an irresponsibly provocative visit to Taiwan by Nancy Pelosi that violated the spirit of the One China Policy that represented the core of the 1972 Shanghai Communique, which has kept peace and stability for 50 years.
With respect to the Ukraine conflict, I have drawn a distinction between two levels. First, there is the Russia-Ukraine confrontation over issues that pertain to their bilateral conflict. But secondly, there is the geopolitical level of interaction between the US and Russia, which entails a confrontation whose stakes exceed the question of Ukraine. Here, escalation was stimulated by what I view as the quite irresponsible rhetoric from the Biden administration that demonized Putin from the outset of the crisis in February 2022. To be sure, Putin is not an attractive political leader, but even during the Cold War American leaders sensibly refrained from demonizing Stalin or other Soviet leaders, and vice versa. Some public officials, congresspeople, did demonize Soviet officials and policies but leaders in the executive branch refrained from such behavior because it would create such an evident obstacle to keeping open necessary diplomatic channels between the US and the Soviets, and significantly the Soviets did the same even during such encroachments on sovereign rights as in the Vietnam War.
Regrettably, in the second phase of the current conflict in Ukraine, the U.S. became a source of escalation. American influence was directed also at more or less discouraging President Zelensky from further seeking a negotiated ending of the war on the ground. Instead, the U.S. position seemed to harden around pursuit of strategic victory. This was made explicit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin who commented on the opportunity to weaken Russia after a visit to Ukraine in which they pledged increased economic and military support. I think that now we have passed a third phase of the Ukraine conflict where there was some recognition in Washington and elsewhere that the Biden administration went too far in an escalatory direction from the perspective of prudence and with regard to the spillover harm from prolonged warfare. Now in a fourth phase where once more a Ukrainian victory together with a Russian/Putin defeat has changed Washington tactics once more, with such favorable results seemingly within reach at what are viewed as acceptable costs. The tragic result, already partly consummated, will be a prolonged war in Ukraine, with terrible adverse consequences for the world economy and the wellbeing of poorer people in a series of countries in the Global South. It will hardest those countries most dependent on affordable access to food and energy, and this includes European countries. It is not only the continuation of Ukraine warfare and China tensions, but the unintended consequences of anti-Russian sanctions that will result in harmful impacts in many parts of the planet.
Aslı Bâli: Given your analysis of the U.S. role in escalating the conflict in Ukraine, what in your view is the current risk of either nuclear confrontation or further erosions of the possibility of promoting U.S.-Russian arms control and nuclear disarmament?
Richard Falk: The discouraging thing about the third phase is that the Biden administration still hasn’t clearly opened wide the door to a diplomatic resolution or emphasized the importance of a cease fire that might stop the immediate killing and enable de-escalation, and now in the midst of the fourth stage it seems too late. What this suggests is that there will be either of two bad scenarios unfolding as the Ukraine Crisis continues: the first is that the risk and costs of a long war in Ukraine results in the U.S. further escalating in order to try to bring the war to a faster conclusion by making Moscow give in, or withdraw, or do something that allows Ukraine and the U.S. to claim victory. That approach really would put maximum pressure on Putin who, in turn, might determine that facing such a serious existential danger to Russian security justifies a robust response that includes the threat and possibly even the use of tactical nuclear weapons as a way, and maybe the only way, to avoid impression of strategic defeat to be the beginning of the end of his leadership.
The second scenario is that the U.S. might be prepared to live with a prolonged war and hope that it at some point Moscow will tire of the experience, the way the Soviets did in Afghanistan and that the US did in Vietnam. But recent experience suggests just how destructive this course would be for Ukraine and the world. It took the U.S. twenty years to extricate itself from Afghanistan, leaving that country as receptive to the Taliban as was twenty years earlier before driven from power, millions permanently displaced and millions more wandering the world as refugees, while those who stay home face famine and extreme gender discrimination, and untold hundreds of thousands of Afghanis have been maimed or worse. Equally depressing, as others have pointed out, the likely outcome from the Ukrainian point of view will not change very much because of what happens on the bloody battlefields, whether the war is ended next week or ten years from now except that a longer war will result in more casualties, greater devastation, and enduring embitterment.
Aslı Bâli: Could you say more about what you would expect at the end of the Ukraine conflict whether it happens through early negotiations or at the end of a protracted war?
Richard Falk: Well, I expect that the most likely scenario for an end to the conflict will entail some concessions by Ukraine in relation to the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine, together with a pledge of neutrality for the country as a whole, and non-membership in NATO. In exchange for such concessions, Russia would likely be expected to pledge in turn that it would heretofore respect the sovereign rights and political independence of the Ukraine. In all likelihood the question of Crimea will not be addressed in the course of ending the current conflict. The contours of such a negotiated end to the conflict had already emerged in talks between the Russian and Ukrainian sides in March of 2022 and there is little reason to think these parameters will change substantially, although if the Ukrainian battlefield successes in the fourth phase hold up, it may alter a future peace process. Yet the probability still remains that such a compromised political outcome could have been achieved earlier, certainly in the first phase of the conflict if not prior to the Russian attack, before early Ukrainian victories led to the second, and then, a fourth geopolitical phase of escalation. It has become clearer as the conflict has persisted that the U.S. is prepared to go to extreme lengths, if necessary to retain its post-Cold War status as sole manager of a unipolar configuration of power in the world.
Asli Bali: Given this assessment, what opportunities, if any, do you see for reviving calls for nuclear disarmament in response to the nuclear risks made evident by the Ukraine conflict?
Richard Falk: Of course, there is a very dark form of opportunity that might emerge if there is indeed a nuclear confrontation and the use of tactical or other nuclear weapons. Such a development would undoubtedly generate a widespread call for disarmament—one hopes that doesn’t occur, of course. Beyond this apocalyptic scenario, it is a little unpredictable whether there will emerge a recognition that the pursuit of permanent stability via the non-proliferation approach should be superseded by a new effort at nuclear disarmament. I think it would be very globally popular to explore that possibility, and I would imagine the Chinese at least would be quite open to that.
In the background of such speculation is the question of whether the US is prepared to live in a multipolar world. Certainly, the post-Cold War period afforded the U.S. the opportunity to nurture illusions that the collapse of the Soviet Union might usher in a durable era in which it was the only global geopolitical actor. In a sense this is what Secretary Blinken presumably meant when he says in speeches that the idea of spheres of influence should have been discarded after World War II.[1] The thought is that after WWII, or at the very least following the Cold War, the U.S. prefers to preside over a system in which its own influence is confined by no sphere and extends in a truly global fashion. Of course, had the US adopted this posture in the immediate aftermath of WWII, as Secretary Blinken suggests, it would have amounted to a declaration of a third world war. This is because ruling out spheres of influence would have mean blocking Soviet intervention in Eastern Europe, whether in Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968. Moreover, what Blinken is suggesting today is not a world without spheres of influence but rather an adaptation of a Monroe Doctrine for the world in which the US regards the global order as its singular sphere of influence. And, of course, the Monroe Doctrine in its narrower hemispheric form is also alive and well as the US continues to assert its prerogative to dictate policies and interfere with internal politics in countries throughout Latin America from Cuba to Venezuela to Nicaragua and beyond. We can hardly imagine the bellicosity of the U.S. response if Russia had dared meddle in Mexico for a decade in the manner that Washington did in Ukraine.
Against this backdrop, it is worth noting that the ongoing US effort at global supremacy does put it at a massive asymmetric advantage over all other actors in exerting influence without geographic bounds. With some 800 foreign bases—and a context in which 97% of all foreign bases globally are American—and troops stationed in every continent the US has spread its influence globally, on land, in the air, on the sea, and is investing heavily to be sure it will control space. Meanwhile, of course, alongside this enormous investment in militarism is profound disinvestment in the infrastructure and social services needed to sustain its own population domestically. In short, the US effort to prevent a multipolar order from challenging its own claim to global supremacy is coming at an enormous cost at home and is currently faltering abroad. The risk is that this strategy is increasingly tied to an investment in ensuring strategic weakness for the Russians in Ukraine, which, in turn, raises temptations to engage in nuclear brinksmanship.
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Aslı Bâli: There is something distressing about the way in which the Ukraine conflict has reset the domestic debate, which at the end of the Trump years and in the 2020 presidential election had begun to converge around the idea of restraining American militarism and ending endless wars. Today, bipartisan consensus around an enhanced defense budget and massive military aid to Ukraine may be eclipsing those earlier commitments. Do you consider the Ukraine conflict as providing a new lease on life for the project of American primacy?
Richard Falk: I’m afraid that might be right. Biden was so committed to unifying the country as part of his presidential campaign—the image of projecting himself as someone who is able to “cross the aisle” and generate bipartisan consensus, profoundly believing that a unified America remains a country capable of doing unlimited good at home and internationally. In fact, however, this unity project failed miserably with the Republican side converging around Trump’s constituencies. The Ukraine war has somewhat reshuffled the deck and Biden seems keen to embrace this opportunity to forge bipartisan consensus around war, but with a belated recognition that currently seeking unity at home is not only a lost cause but exhibits his lost sense of the realities of the country. His popularity level remains surprisingly low, but the surge of Cold War bipartisanship in relation to appropriating billions of dollars for Ukraine is undeniable. From a global perspective, however, this great show of empathy for Ukrainian suffering and civilian damage and refugees, and so on, sets a stark contrast to the ways in which the US and the West responded to other humanitarian crises. Thus one price of this partial unity at home may be an increasingly divided world in which US standing declines further. The specific comparisons between the Western response to Ukraine and their indifference and callous disregard for the plight of Palestinians, the consequences of the Iraq War, and the displacement generated by the Syrian conflict is difficult to explain without taking into account an element of racism. This reality has hardly escaped the attention of governments and communities in the Global South.
Aslı Bâli: Returning to the nuclear question, you have suggested that the Ukraine war has awakened a new generation to the real risks of the nuclear arsenals retained by global powers. Do you believe that this awareness alongside concerns about the double standards attached to American hegemony might mobilize new global social movements calling for disarmament and a more equitable international order?
Richard Falk: I certainly hope that might be the case. I think it would be premature to expect the Ukraine conflict alone to rekindle a vibrant anti-nuclear movement at this point. But there may be further developments that do have such a galvanizing effect, something that unfortunately cannot be discounted as the Russians engage in nuclear drills to remind Western states of the risks of escalation in Ukraine. There are also other nuclear dangers that are looming in the world. I think the Israel-Iran relationship is very unstable and may produce some renewed awareness of nuclear risk; the same is also true of the conflicts in India-Pakistan, the Korean peninsula, and above all the looming conflict involving Taiwan. In the latter instance Pentagon war games have achieved results showing that unless the U.S. is prepared itself to abandon the nuclear taboo it loses in the event of a naval confrontation in the Taiwan Straights. So new generations may come to understand that the idea of achieving stability with nuclear weapons is a dangerous and unstable illusion. This brings me back to the cynical idea that I encountered at the Council on Foreign Relations about disarmament being a useful fiction to appease publics in the Global South. At the time, and there was no pushback against such an assertion at the meeting. The response of the audience was to simply acknowledge that this is how realist elites talks about national security. It is this kind of acquiescence and complacency that poses the greatest obstacle to global social organizing around disarmament and, thus, the greatest risk that we may stumble into crises where one side is prepared to risk nuclear war to avoid a strategic defeat. I hope that the threats that are now manifest in Ukraine, Taiwan, Iran, and beyond might spark new forms of awareness among the now more mobilized younger generations leading social movements for environmental and racial justice. Nuclear arsenals pose an existential threat to our planet alongside the reckless climate policies, massive wealth disparities, and the virulent structural racism that plague the global order. There is much work to do if we are to address all of these challenges, and there might be no better place to launch a new phase of transformative global politics by championing nuclear abolition.
Global Justice in the 21st Century 
Contesting Nuclearism: Management or Transformation? An Urgent Challenge
22 Jan[Prefatory Note: The essay below, longer than most of my posts, started off as a tribute to my friend David Krieger, serving as a chapter in a forthcoming book honoring his dedication to the abolition of nuclear weaponry by way of a treaty regime being prepared under the editorship of Rick Wayman, now President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Krieger’s successor. In the modified form published below the essay calls attention to the generally unappreciated tensions between managing nuclear weapons and eliminating them altogether. It stresses the crucial point that management inevitably produces a structure of ‘nuclear apartheid’ that is to some extent ‘legalized’ by way of the Nonproliferation Treaty of 1961, and depends for implementation, not on law, but on geopolitical muscle, including war. This geopolitical pattern of NPT enforcement has been mainly undertaken by the United States, but is generally supported by most of the other nuclear weapons states. I write in opposition to such a management arrangement for moral, legal, political, and prudential reasons, and believe that total nuclear disarmament is attainable and would be beneficially transformative if achieved.]
Contesting Nuclearism: Management or Transformation?
I feel privileged to have shared with David Krieger an unwavering anti-nuclear commitment, mainly under the auspices of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation of which he served for so long as the founding President. We worked collaboratively on several books that sought to balance abiding nuclear fears against our equally persisting hopes for a denuclearizing world order. [At The Nuclear Precipice: Catastrophe or Transformation, ed. with David Krieger, 2007; Path to Zero: Dialogues on Nuclear Dangers, written with David Krieger, 2012] Although we share a big picture consensus with respect to the nuclear policy agenda, we have some conceptual and tactical differences, which gave rise to creative tension more than to arguments and disagreements.
In such a complex and uncertain world, it may help to think like a Hindu, and accept contradiction as more in keeping with social and political reality than is finding a right answer to complex policy puzzles. What is almost impossible for those trained within Western frames of reference is to grasp that there are diverse perspectives of understanding that may result in seemingly contradictory recommendations despite shared values and goals. Civilizational perspectives and personal experience inevitably color what we feel, think, and do, and so being likeminded when it comes abolishing nuclear weapons is often coupled with somewhat divergent views on what to advocate when it comes to tactics and priorities.
In this spirit, this essay tries to depict a set of reasons why the goal of nuclear disarmament will never be reached so long as arms control and nonproliferation of nuclear weaponry are seen as the pillars of global stability in the nuclear age. [For a comprehensive presentation of my approach see Falk, ed. By Stefan. Andersson & Curt Dahlgren, On Nuclear Weapons: Denuclearization, Demilitarization, and Disarmament, 2019. By this focus on points of differing policy emphasis and tactical disagreement I do not want to neglect the significance of the similarities that seem more organic and foundational. As I understand these similarities, some main tenets can be identified: the desirability of a world without any nuclear weapons to be pursued by way of an intergovernmental treaty negotiated among the existing nuclear weapons states that achieves nuclear zero by stages of successful implementation, a process formally endorsed by non-nuclear states; such a treaty would unconditionally prohibit possession and further development of the weaponry, reinforce existing prohibitions on threat or use of nuclear weapons, and reduce existing nuclear arsenals by a phased, monitored, and. verified procedures with levels of confidence and ample mechanisms for complaint and dispute-settlement; there are many confidence-building steps that could be taken along the way, either unilaterally or by agreement with other nuclear weapons states, including de-alerting of existing weapons, redefining strategic deterrence doctrine in minimalist and purely defensive terms, and adapting doctrine and deployments in accord with a formally declared adoption of a No First Use Policy, supporting the UN Treaty of Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) [The 2017 treaty enters into force 90 days after the formal receipt of 50 ratifications by signatory states; as of 25 November 2019, 34 states have deposited notifications of ratification with the UN]
Another area of convergence is with respect to the status of nuclear weapons from the perspective of international law. Most advocates of total disarmament, even if arms control friendly, agree that nuclear weaponry is intrinsically unlawful under existing international law, that is, without the desirable reinforcement provided by the TPNW, and that any threat or use of a nuclear weapon would be an international crime for which accountability should attach. Such a consensus affirms the classic dissenting opinion of Judge Christopher Weeramantry in the Advisory Opinion of addressing the legality of nuclear weapons in the International Court of Justice. [See “The Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons,” Advisory Opinion, International Court of Justice (1996); see also Shimoda case decided in 1963 by the Tokyo District Court as interpreted, Falk, “The Shimoda Case,” American Journal of International Law, Vol. 51, 759-793]
There is also widespread agreement that maintaining confidence in such a denuclearizing world would require the parallel phasing out of nuclear energy capabilities. Nuclear power facilities as themselves too dangerous to be tolerable, despite those that claim their necessity for realistic project to reduce carbon emissions in accord with the scientific consensus. Events such as the accident at Chernobyl or the tsunami that caused the disruption of the Fukushima facilities are illustrative of the dangers arising from accidents and extreme natural events. Nuclear power plants provide targets for political extremists and disposal of nuclear waste pose major health threats. As well, sophisticated nuclear technology is susceptible to dual use, would feed suspicions that could easily cause disenchantment with nuclear disarmament, and give rise to international tensions, even war-threatening crises. The allegations and conflict potential associated with Iran’s nuclear program is indicative of the problems that would face a world monitoring and verifying disarmament commitments where a breakout from an agreement would likely cause dangerous reactions in an atmosphere of geopolitical panic.
(1) The Incompatibility of Arms Control and Disarmament
Perhaps, my biggest divergence with Krieger arises with respect to addressing the relevance of arms control in relation to our shared goals of denuclearization and a commitment to achieved total nuclear disarmament. I have long advocated drawing a sharp distinction between arms control as managerial and geopolitical in its nature and disarmament as transformative and juridical in character. By managerial I mean that the primary purpose of a given measure is to reduce risks posed by and costs associated with the nuclear status quo. Typical arms control proposals involve de-alerting weapons systems, agreeing to forego certain modernizing technologies, avoiding provocative doctrines and deployments, and reducing numbers of warheads and missile launchers.
By geopolitical I reference the fact that the intended and actual effect of most managerial initiatives is to stabilize the nuclear status quo, including not challenging the possession, control, and legitimacy of the weaponry as currently exercised by the main nuclear weapons states. An arms control approach also helps explain the priorities accorded to nonproliferation and counter-proliferation policies as in the dealing by the nuclear weapons states alleged to be a supposed nuclear aspirant as Iran or such a pariah state as North Korea. Indeed, in mainstream media and political discourse the challenge of nuclear weaponry is reduced to strengthening, stabilizing, and enforcing the nonproliferation regime, and nuclear disarmament is clearly struck from the policy agenda of the nuclear weapons states.
My view is that the endorsement of arms control approaches subtly and indirectly substitutes management for transformation, and leaves the world facing unacceptable risks of intended and unintended uses of nuclear weapons for the indefinite future, as well as ‘the nuclear apartheid’ structure of allowing possession, development, and deployment by the nuclear weapons states and prohibiting it for all others. Beyond this, it overlooks the cultural and collective legal/ethical/spiritual (normative) costs associated with deterrence strategies that regard retaliatory uses of nuclear weapons as a legal and ethical security policy despite their indiscriminate, toxic, genocidal, catastrophic, and possibly omnicidal characteristics. [E.P. Thompson, “Notes on Exterminism: The Last Stage of Civilization,” New Left Review, May/June, 1980.]
Geopolitical factors are not generally considered in discussions of these issues, but given my world order interests I regard geopolitics as subverting the major premise of state-centric world order, namely, the equality of sovereign states.[UN Charter, Article 2(1): “The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all of its members.”] Of course, this formulation in the UN Charter is mendacious language that cannot be reconciled with the P-5 permanent membership and right of veto in the Security Council. A prime ingredient of national sovereignty is the unconditional authority of states to determine their own security policy when it comes to self-defense, especially in response to threats. The irony of the managerial approach is that the two states with the most plausible security justifications for recourse to nuclear deterrence, Iran and North Korea, are the only states under pressure to forego or renounce all intentions of acquiring such weaponry. Even worse, this policy of denial is not a decision of the world community at the UN. It is a self-serving policy articulated by the nuclear weapons states, especially the United States, the UK, and France, geopolitical players that have assumed the role of nuclear gatekeepers while keeping their own nuclear options discretionary and secret. Instead of juridical equality, nuclear weapons policy is geopolitically hierarchical.
I acknowledge that drawing this sharp line between arms control and disarmament has some drawbacks. Perhaps, the most important of these is to make the goals of anti-nuclear activism seem unattainable and utopian because of the weak political will present to challenge the nuclear status quo, a political reality that has persisted since 1945 without any further weapons use. It can be argued in favor of arms control, that its measures are inherently valuable, and raise the anti-nuclear morale by demonstrating that concrete steps can be taken to reduce overall risks and costs of nuclearism, that something positive is happening in response to these concerns. Further, that when and if a more peace-oriented political atmosphere emerges, it would be a simple matter to advocate total nuclear disarmament, and on this basis strengthen the political will to encourage political leaders that the time has come to pursue transformative initiatives. In effect, as matters now stand, arms control seems better than nothing, and in this period, it is prudent to get what is possible, while maintaining the expectation that at some time under conditions impossible to anticipate, nuclear disarmament would rise to the top of the political agenda.
I entertain these expectations to a certain extent. I continue to hope that a transformative agenda will at some point (other than a post-catastrophe context) be supported by an insistent public opinion and by responsive political leaders. In the 1990s I had the hope that at the end of the Cold War, especially as coupled with the collapse of the Soviet Union, there would be an irresistible surge of support for seeking nuclear disarmament. After all, political events had undermined the main deterrence rationale for retaining and developing the weaponry, and there seemed no reason to retain such potentially catastrophic weaponry. I thought both leaders and citizens would seize the opportunity to work toward a nuclear-free world. Sadly, it didn’t happen, and was not even seriously considered. There was no push from below, and no interest from above. We should all be asking ourselves why such a mood of nuclear complacency prevailed when there seemed so much to gain by working toward an attainable and historic agreement to rid future generations of the fear that somewhere, somehow this infernal weaponry would again wreak havoc. One part of an explanation is that the nuclear dimension of the militarized bureaucracy in the United States, and elsewhere, is sufficiently influential to inhibit any concerted political moves to rid the world of nuclear weaponry.
Resuming my effort to show that although my views of this arm control/ disarmament interface have significant differences from what Krieger has emphasized both in the outlook of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and through his own work, our differences should be understood as the adversary of complementary approaches. I want to stress my perception that the driving force behind arms control is to enhance the stability of the nuclear environment and save money. In my view, foregoing certain nuclear innovations and deployments makes nuclear disarmament seem less necessary rather than more attainable. In this regard, arms control falls within the domain of political liberalism, which is itself under attack from neoconservative militarists who regard any international arrangements designed to reduce the risks associated with nuclear weaponry as a snare and delusion, and definitely not in the national security interest of the United States, and maybe some other nuclear weapons states.
Such a mainstream debate on the pros and cons of arms control needs to be understood as most essentially about the managerial form. The geopolitical hawks are arguing in favor of national management of nuclearism with due regard for the pursuit of strategic national interests. Most liberals favor negotiated international management arrangements that limit geopolitical options, including the avoidance of nuclear arms races. Arms control liberals also seek to minimize costs and risks of the nuclear status quo, giving a strong priority to keeping the nonproliferation regime alive and well. The most idealistic arms controllers feel that success with partial measures would build confidence of governments needed to take more ambitious denuclearizing steps in the future.
As suggested, our divergence of views can be viewed as complementary rather than posing an either/or choice.[Falk/Krieger, Path to Zero; Dialogues on Nuclear Dangers(2016).] I regard it as useful to understand that arms control generally tends to work, at least for the foreseeable future, against rather than in support of nuclear disarmament. I understand Krieger to be suggesting that while abolition is the primary goal, during the foreseeable it is desirable to do whatever becomes politically feasible by way of reducing risks and costs associated with the existing nuclear arms environment. This outlook may help explain why Krieger is reluctant to make the point that while a given arms control measure may be a constructive contribution in some respects, it has the unacknowledged effect of moving the world further from nuclear disarmament rather than closer to it.
In both our positions there is room for convergence. Krieger’s position does not oblige him to regard every arms control measure under consideration as beneficial, nor am I committed to rejecting automatically every arms control measure that comes along. For instance, I would guess that we would both favor a declaratory No First Use policy either unilaterally undertaken or adopted by agreement among nuclear weapons states. Contrariwise, we would likely both oppose an international agreement that permitted the development of defense systems that would have the likely effect of making First Strike Options more attractive while claiming to make a rogue surprise attack less likely.
I do feel strongly that we who seek permanent nuclear peace need to understand that the denuclearizing struggle must confront the bipartisan national consensus on these issues in the United States, which has survived without controversy despite the end of the Cold War. The consensus holds that the existing nuclear weapons regime needs to be managed, but never disassembled. The consensus is split as to who should do the managing, and what should be the role of geopolitics in the overall scheme. It regressively excludes from political imagination any endorsement of nuclear disarmament as a matter of principle. The Statement of US, UK, and France expressing their reasons of these governments for rejection of TPNW makes this clear. The main contention of this Statement is that even after the Cold War nuclear weapons enhance national security rather than erode it. By such reasoning, all sovereign states should have a legal entitlement to acquire the weaponry, and hence it becomes reckless for a government not to become a nuclear weapons state, exercising their right of withdrawal from the NPT.
(2) The Normative Ambiguity of Non-Proliferation and Counter Proliferation Policies
As earlier indicated, the geopolitical essence of the managerial approach is shaped by the nuclear governmental oligarchs rather than by the world community as problematically represented by the UN. In other settings. I have argued that the weakness of community at the global level makes it unrealistic to expect the UN to be effective or even influential whenever a policy issue collides with geopolitical interests. This difficulty was compounded by vesting veto power in the governments of the first five states to acquire nuclear weapons. In other words when it comes to matters of peace and security geopolitics has been written into the constitutional fabric of the UN System with juridical considerations based on sovereign equality put aside at least so far as the Security Council is concerned.
To achieve a world order bargain, a deal of sort was struck, and incorporated into the text of the NPT. Non-nuclear states would receive the technology needed for what was put forward as a good faith pledge would be written into the treaty obliging the governments of the nuclear weapons states to seek nuclear disarmament through international negotiations, and even more ambitiously, general and complete disarmament.[See Articles IV, VII NPT] This tradeoff was flawed in conception and execution. It was flawed because it was based on vague and unmonitored commitments that were almost impossible to interpret, much less implement. It was flawed in practice by discrimination among states, by facilitating covert acquisition of nuclear weapons by Israel, while waging an aggressive war in Iraq that was partly justified on counter proliferation grounds and subsequently relying on irresponsible coercive diplomacy to threaten Iran and North Korea with potentially grave repercussions.
The fundamental flaw of the approach taken in the NPT became increasingly evident over time. It became clear that the nuclear weapons states without exception were not interested in pursuing nuclear disarmament as policy objectives. Occasionally, politicians would put forward their belief in nuclear disarmament. But it was at best an empty wish that lacked political traction, and at worst was a public relations stunt used to gain a propaganda or partisan advantage.
(3) Should the NPT be repudiated in view of the flagrant breach of Article VI by the nuclear weapons states?
The issue of nonproliferation is central to my understanding of the challenge of nuclearism.[See Robert J. Lifton & Richard Falk, Indefensible Weapons: The Legal and Political Case Against Nuclearism (1982)] It is central because the establishment of a nonproliferation regime is what has linked geopolitical interests to the retention of nuclear weapons by a small number of countries, above all the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. It sets these five states apart even in relation to the other four nuclear weapons states for whom the weaponry is more closely connected with a more specific search for security, status, and regional influence (Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea). I believe it is important to expose these unacceptable geopolitical links between nuclear weaponry, nonproliferation, and world peace and security. Liberal anti-nuclearists are either take no notice of these geopolitical dimensions of nuclear policy, and tend to support the nonproliferation regime based on their assumption that the world becomes that much more dangerous as each new political actor acquires nuclear weapons. To take note of the problem is a far cry from finding a solution.
As with arms control, the policy issue raised by nonproliferation is complicated, defies any dogmatic view, and cannot be resolved by rational analysis or even by recourse to moral and legal considerations. I share the view that any sane person would like to live in a world with as few governments having access to nuclear weapons as possible. Seen in isolation, this is a desirable goal. But just how desirable is nonproliferation policy if other considerations are taken into consideration? Among these considerations is the realization that incentives to seek nuclear disarmament are greatly diminished if the nuclear club can be kept small as it allows the nuclear weapons states to retain their security options and geopolitical status associated with the possession of the weaponry, as well as to threaten other states with annihilation without fearing retaliation.
Another important consideration is the distinction between the nonproliferation treaty instrument (NPT) and the implementation of the treaty by way of the establishment of a nonproliferation regime (NPR) devised by and under the control of the United States, and not the UN. Note that the NPT purports, at least, to be based on the formal equality of states, and supposedly relied on a logic of reciprocity with respect to obligations. The nonproliferation regime, in contrast, proceeds from assumptions of inequality, claiming for nuclear weapons states a responsibility for preventing or even reversing proliferation, while imposing no denuclearizing responsibilities on any nuclear weapons state except possibly North Korea. In this sense, due to geopolitics, nonproliferation rather than denuclearization becomes the operative manner of partially integrating or normalizing the weaponry with respect to world order. This means that geopolitics is given precedence over international law and global justice, and few seem to notice, and even fewer appear to care. By treating nonproliferation as independent from the broader issues of peace and justice, the nuclear policy question is reduced to whether if country X acquires the bomb will the world or region be safer or more dangerous. This kind of reasoning has provided the justification for insisting that Iran demonstrate to the world that it does not possess nuclear weapons, and is not seeking to produce despite its technological capacity and infrastructure that confers the potentiality. Geopolitical prerogatives authorize the nuclear weapons states to overlook the unlawfulness of threats to the security of these potential proliferators that seem to explain their temptations to develop a nuclear weapons capability.
There are further concerns about burying these issues beneath the banner of national nuclear bipartisanship.[By bipartisanship I am referring to the consensus that has generally transcended party differences in the formulation and carrying out of foreign policy, including adherence to the logic of nuclearism, which includes the management of the counterproliferation regime.] For one thing, the counterproliferation regime tacitly authorizes threats and uses of force to carry out its nonproliferation missions. Such threats and uses of force have been relied upon to uphold to case for attacking and occupying Iraq since 2003 despite the refusal of the UN Security Council to accept the argument or authorize the undertaking. Since this undertaking could not be validated by reference to self-defense as defined in Article 51, it must be considered a violation of the core norm of the UN Charter (Article 2 (4)) and thus appears to qualify as a war of aggression, which was treated as the most severe of international war crimes at the Nuremberg trials held after World War II as well as being a damaging show of disrespect for the authority of the United Nations given that authorization was requested and denied. The same dynamic is at play with regard to Iran at the present time. Threats and sanctions, without any UN authorization have been directed at Iran, a state that seems at the mercy of geopolitical instability, further accentuated by Trump irresponsible repudiation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated during Obama’s term as president. The main conclusion to be reached is that implementing nonproliferation has been achieved at the expense of international law and even the UN Charter, and by relying on a one-sided interpretation of the NPT that grants impunity to the nuclear weapons states while enacting unlawful punitive measures against non-nuclear states, especially those that are targets of geopolitical enmity. My impression is that advocates of continuing validity of the NPT arrangement are insensitive or ignorant toward this double standard relating to compliance.
A second intrusion by geopolitical manipulation is the manner in which countries outside the P-5 are treated when it comes to nuclear weaponry. It seems evident that Israel was given entry to the club despite its covert means of acquiring the capability, even receiving secret technological assistance from several P-5 nuclear weapons states. Whether by agreement or choice Israel has maintained a formal posture of neither admitting nor denying the existence of its weapons arsenal, although it is widely accepted that it possesses the weaponry and continues with further development activities. [Seymour Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal & American Foreign Policy 1991] What is clear is that the NPR discriminates among states based on their international alignments and size, allowing Israel in, while keeping Iraq and Iran out. This discriminatory practice illustrates the geopolitical tendency to divide the world into friends and enemies when allocating rights and duties among sovereign states. In other words, geopolitical rather than legal criteria are relied upon to establish the policy interface between nuclear haves and have nots.
A third intrusion is the effect of allowing the NPR to override the treaty without any attempt at reconciling the two sources of normative order, or even to alter the NPT so that it conforms to the practices of NPR. The NPT imposes a solemn obligation on nuclear weapons states to pursue nuclear disarmament in good faith with an intention to conclude an agreement. [See unanimous finding of ICJ in the Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion. The language used by the 14-0 vote, which included the American judge, is suggestive: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.” The finding in the Advisory Opinion follows closely the wording and spirit of Article VI of the NPT: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”]
These states are parties to the NPT, and yet they have joined in the virtual negation of this most fundamental feature of the treaty text that undoubtedly explains the willingness of most non-nuclear states to become parties to the treaty. We can only speculate as to whether the NPT would have ever come into force without having this reciprocal feature that bound the two states in an encompassing agreement. The NPT seemed to have the intrinsic merit of seeking to rid the world of nuclear weapons by negotiation while freezing nuclear membership. The treaty has been reasonably successful in inhibiting further acquisition of this highly dangerous and legally dubious category of weaponry, while being an unacknowledged failure so far as its reciprocal goal of denuclearization.
In the end, this double standard raises the question as to whether the NPT should be repudiated, or at the very least subjected to sharp criticism by non-nuclear parties. From a legal point of view the nuclear weapons states appear to have violated material provisions of the treaty, giving non-nuclear parties an option to void the agreement. As matters now stand, the NPT provides a legal rationale. for the claims put forward by the NPR. Yet the repudiation of the NPT could be interpreted as a green light to acquisition of the weaponry as an insurance policy. In view of such a dilemma, the best response might be a heightened effort to apply the treaty as drafted, especially insisting on compliance with Article VI, and further construed by seeking a second Advisory Opinion from the World Court.
The NWPT is another sort of pushback against both NPT and NPR, as well. It obviously challenges the legality and legitimacy of the geopolitical nuclear apartheid as pertains to the control of nuclear weaponry by putting forward a treaty seeking a wide-ranging normative prohibition of nuclear weaponry that is applicable to all states.
Alongside concerns about proliferation is the absence of concern in response to the maneuvers of geopolitics as these bear on the sovereign right of states to uphold their security and to exercise their inherent right of self-defense. Actually, Iran and North Korea have far more reasonable security arguments for acquiring nuclear weapons than do any of the other nuclear weapons states. This recognition does not justify acquiring the weaponry, but it helps explain the reasonableness of their behavior as compared the examples being set by leading states. Such vulnerable states are faced with defending their territorial sovereignty against coercive diplomacy and possible interventions and encroachments on their security carried out and promoted by neighboring political actors controlling vastly superior military forces, and in these instances allied with nuclear weapons states.
By this pronounced unwillingness of the NPR to allow certain states to determine their own security needs if it undermines efforts to prevent further proliferation, unaccountable and often irresponsible geopolitical managers of NPR are effectively given the authority to override national security policy of these weaker states. For instance, Iran is threatened with military attack if it crosses certain technological thresholds. As significant, geopolitical forces make no effort to take steps to reassure Iran with respect to security or to replace a nonproliferation approach by pushing for the establishment of a Middle East Nuclear Free Zone. There has been no response by the West to Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, who presented a peace plan for the Persian Gulf in 2019 at the UN General Assembly, given the name Hormuz Peace Endeavor with the fitting acronym of HOPE.
The example of Libya haunts this topic of forgoing the nuclear weapons option, as many believe that if Muammar Qaddafi had not abandoned plans to acquire nuclear weapons, he would be alive today. Similarly, if Saddam Hussein had really possessed a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, many believe that Iraq would never have been attacked in 2003. In other words, nuclear deterrence is possibly a more effective approach to national security if invoked by relatively weaker nuclear states. The NPR offers no compensatory steps to offset security concerns of such obviously vulnerable states as Iran beyond their rather tenuous conditional willingness to remove sanctions, and thus it is not surprising that nonproliferation is tied to militarism.
It is also notable that the most prominent instance in which hawkish foreign policy establishment figures advocated nuclear disarmament was in reaction to their skepticism about the viability of NPR in containing future proliferation. [George P. Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 4, 2007; see by same authors, “Deterrence in the Age of Nuclear Proliferation,” WSJ, March 7, 2011.]. In effect, these geopolitically oriented political figures, influential former holders of high-profile security positions, favored nuclear disarmament not because of any moral scruples or fear of an impending apocalypse, but because of their worries that the NPR was breaking down. In effect, their belief that further proliferation would likely occur, and make it so much more difficult to achieve geopolitical political goals that they were uncharacteristically willing to recommend phased denuclearization as a grand strategy. They did this in the belief that the West would enjoy military dominance in a denuclearizing world through their retention of far superior non-nuclear capabilities, which were in any event, more usable in the course of foreign policy if there seemed to be no risk of an unwanted escalation above the nuclear threshold. I believe these complexities need to be discussed, while arms control proponents tend to believe that such issues are often ‘academic’ distractions that fail to keep the proper focus on what is wrong about the weaponry and how to get rid of the weapons before they get rid of humanity.
(4) Can we have Stage III nuclear disarmament without non-nuclear demilitarization?
A final issue touched upon is whether a credible posture toward a disarmament process for nuclear weapons must at some stage also address issues relating to non-nuclear demilitarization, and indeed war itself. Arms control oriented thinkers place more stress than I would on the distinctive policy priority arising from the acute dangers posed by nuclear war. Those who favor nuclear disarmament tend to focus more on the obstacles to nuclear disarmament created by existing levels of militarism as well as by the role of war and nuclear apartheid in international relations, and as embedded in the political realist mentality that continues to regulate the behavior of national leaders.
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There is a practical argument about inducing the weaker nuclear states to enter into a treaty framework that leaves them more vulnerable after giving up their arsenal of nuclear weapons. The governments of such states to the extent that their leaders believe that exposure to hostile states wielding superior conventional weaponry would discourage any effort to tamper with the nuclear status quo. Such security minded states likely include Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, and possibly India (in relation to China).
As a nuclear disarmament process deepened, there would be more attention given to a denuclearizing security environment. To achieve the goal of total abolition, the only acceptable outcome of a denuclearizing process, parallel steps would need to be taken to reduce non-defensive armaments, which might be difficult with the emergence of drones and accurate long-range missile technology.
Concluding Note
Some anti-nuclear moderates believe that the most promising way to reach a world without nuclear weapons is to convince society that fears of a nuclear war are well-founded, that the results of a war fought with nuclear weapons would be unimaginably horrible in its devastation and aftermath, and that phased, verified nuclear disarmament offers a safer and more humane alternative that would give permanent nuclear peace its best chance. [See Daniel Ellsberg, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner (2017)]
I do not agree. In contrast, I am convinced that to move forward toward total nuclear disarmament we need to take much better account of the obstacles, frictions, and nuances, explaining why the anti-nuclear movement has so far failed to challenge effectively the nuclear weapons establishment. This position is open to criticism as being overly concerned with obstacles, and less focused on issues of morality, prudence, political action, and war prevention (relating to the implicit arms control claim that nuclear deterrence has prevented all major wars for more than 75 years, including those that might have been fought had nuclear weapons not existed).
In the end, I think we need to continue to have dialogues between those anti-nuclearists who are uncritical about the friction between pursuing arms control and disarmament, and those who believe that their antagonisms must be addressed. It remains crucial
to keep mobilizing moral outrage as the foundation for political action. By contrast, I believe that ant-nuclearism will not get far until it clarifies the tensions between seeking arms control and favoring nuclear disarmament. It seems a serious confusion to suppose that arms control is a halfway house and a serious moral and political failure not to critique the nonproliferation regime that sustains nuclear apartheid which is self-servingly asserted to be the only path to global security.[See George W. Bush, U.S. National Security Strategy, 2002, an important interpretation of global security that fails even to acknowledge nuclear disarmament as a desirable goal].
My assessment of the arms control/disarmament interface can be summarized in a series of propositions:
–that it is morally, legally, politically, and prudentially imperative to rid the world of nuclear weaponry through a verified
nuclear disarmament treaty and accompanying implementation regime, and this should be regarded as the paramount goal of anti-nuclearism, taking precedence over other goals;
–that arms control approaches must be explicitly understood as managing nuclear weapons, which is often not consistent with achieving the paramount goal, and may actually make the goal of total nuclear disarmament less attainable;
–that the two top priorities of the managerial approach to nuclear weaponry are to prevent a major war and to prevent further proliferation of nuclear weaponry to additional sovereign states, and especially to those potential nuclear weapons states that have adversary relationship to regional and global geopolitical regimes;
–that despite the NPT, avoiding further proliferation of nuclear weaponry requires reliance on implementation by geopolitical regimes, by threats, and if necessary, by military action;
–that the coercive maintenance of non-proliferation has produced a structure of nuclear apartheid, which is inconsistent with the world order premise of the equality of sovereign states and will be resisted from time to time by states whose security is under threat or who harbor hegemonic ambitions;
–that the final stages in any disarmament process must also address global militarism in general and reduce non-nuclear military capabilities;
–that overcoming current high levels of complacency about the risks and effects of a nuclear war will depend on civil society activism and a more peace literate public opinion, and will not be achieved by normal diplomacy.
Tags: arms control, David Krieger, disarmament, geopolitics, Non-Nuclear Militarism, NPT, Nuclear Apartheid